Communication ETDs

Publication Date

Spring 2-21-2023

Abstract

In this dissertation I identify and analyze the rhetoric that creates the anti-abortion cultural narrative and locate its toxic secrets by exposing the logics and ideologies the secrets obscure and sustain, and finally, ascertaining the strategic rhetorics that enable the narrative’s power and centrality. There are two primary arguments proposed in this dissertation. First, I argue that settler colonialism is the primary toxic secret nestled just beneath the surface of the anti-abortion cultural narrative. It is the secret that animates and sustains the narrative in service of maintaining settler colonial social order via control and maintenance of the population. Second, I argue that the anti-abortion campaign that burgeoned in the United States in the years following Roe v. Wade (1973) crafted this particular anti-abortion cultural narrative through three strategic rhetorics: 1) a (re)constituted concept of fetal personhood; 2) ideographic use of fetal imagery grounded in a Christian ethos; and 3) ideographic violence made possible through a reconceptualization of what “counts” as a violent act in the context of abortion.

This dissertation also argues that the anti-abortion narrative operates in service of a larger settler colonial agenda, ultimately contributing to a settler colonial worldmaking project. I began this introduction discussing Alito’s opinion text because it is a prime example of how history, medical “facts,” socio-cultural discourses, and state power converge in narratives of reproduction. These narratives are not new, rather the Dobbs decision reminds that the heteropatriarchal White supremacist settler colonial state is working exactly as it’s meant to, privileging exactly those it was created to privilege. Alito’s ability to write the significance of pregnancy determination out of U.S. history and to construct pregnancy prevention as nonessential for “liberty” situates the anti-abortion cultural narrative within a colonial master narrative (or, ideology) that is concerned with maintaining and controlling the settler colonial population.

Language

English

Keywords

abortion, reproductive justice, strategic rhetoric, rhetorical criticism, narrative inquiry, Dobbs v. Jackson

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Communication

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

Department of Communication and Journalism

First Committee Member (Chair)

Shinsuke Eguchi

Second Committee Member

Ilia Rodriguez Nazario

Third Committee Member

Michael Lechuga

Fourth Committee Member

Bernadette Marie Calafell

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